Zootopia House of Cards: Queen of Hearts
by Old Goat
Summary: The fate of Judy and Nick is in the paws of the former street hustler and his deck of cards. This story was inspired by a YouTube video of the amazing David Blaine doing a card trick. (Renamed from Zootopia Short Story: Queen of Hearts) First story in a series of short card based stories about our favorite Zootopia characters.


**Zootopia House of Cards: Queen of Hearts**

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 **The fate of Judy and Nick is in the paws of the former street hustler and his deck of cards. This story was inspired by a YouTube video of the amazing David Blaine doing a card trick.**

 _I do not own the rights to Zootopia or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable purposes. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious._

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The young attractive female rabbit in the police uniform gasped as the smoke filled her lungs and she could feel the heat from the flames around her. Through watering eyes she saw the dashing looking fox who calmly stood in the doorway, the fire was dancing and crackling around him. "Nick?" she weakly called out.

"Nick?" The red fox chuckled in a voice that was unfamiliar. "I suppose that name will do, after all, I've been called Old Nick before."

She coughed and then her eyes widened as the fox in the dark blue business suit lazily walked through the flames towards her. "Help me!" she wheezed out.

"Are you sure you want my help?" he mockingly replied as he gave her a smirk. "It comes with a price. So if you agree to pay it, just touch my paw."

"Please…help me!" she gasped. In desperation, her paw grasped his and she was wracked with exquisite pain, his touch was both icy cold and red hot. "Noooo!" she protested.

"It's too late my dear!" he triumphantly called out.

She found herself in a dark room alone with the strange creature who she realized only looked like a fox. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Really Judy!" he laughed at her question. "Didn't your grandfather warn you that foxes are red because they were made by the devil? Pop-Pop was close, because just maybe foxes are red because they are the devils?"

She whimpered as he touched her cheek and cursed herself for not listening to her partner.

 **One hour ago…**

"Oh come on Slick!" Judy Hopps laughed as she pulled the large police cruiser onto the busy city street. "Don't tell me that was the best come back you could think of? What happened to that supposed silver tongue of yours tonight?"

"So I was caught a little off guard by his comments," the handsome red fox in the dark blue police uniform replied with a telltale smirk on his muzzle. "As for this silver tongue of mine, you'd better be careful Fluff because I might show you what it can really do." Nick Wilde emphasized his words with a wink and laughed when she blushed.

Lately, their playful and friendly banter had become a little more risqué, which she just assumed had to do with it being "that time of the season" for the red fox. He defiantly had a different scent to him, a more musky male smell with a hint of violets that even Scent Off spray couldn't fully hide. The fox was also much more fidgety than usual, it was as if he was preparing to hunt something and when they went into the restaurant for dinner, he literally pounced in front of her so he could hold the door open. The one thing that perplexed her the most was that despite it being mating season, Nick did not seem to be interested in any of the vixens who showed interest in him and tried to get his attention. She had even tracked down Nick's buddy Finnick to inquire if her partner was gay, causing the small fennec fox to choke on his beer when he burst out laughing.

"No sweetheart!" the tan fox finally replied and then he gave her a strange look. "He just hadn't found his right mate."

She grinned up at Nick as she switched lanes, driving the cruiser down Herd Street and into the evening's traffic. "Street's deadlocked Fluff," the uniformed fox groaned at the surrounding traffic. "Wheel her down the alley on the left, it will cut us across to Maple Street and then over to Oak Lane."

"Who needs a GPS when you're around Slick," she laughed.

"I just know all the shortcuts, that's all," he somewhat proudly replied. "I know parts of this town like the back of my paw."

"I'll bet you do, especially when you were running from us cops," she giggled.

"I'll have you know that I never broke the law!" he snapped back at her. She quickly glanced at him, expecting him to be mad. Instead, he was grinning as he added, "At least when…I ah...make that if I did, I never got caught."

She glanced at him, he was smiling at her and she smelled that musky hint of violets again. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," he quickly answered as he looked out the window and away from her.

She shrugged, but when she looked at him again, she noticed that he was still nervously watching her from the corner of his eye. Her ears shot up in surprise when she suddenly realized what Finn meant, Nick was interested in her as his mate!

 **One hour later…**

The dashing fox stepped out of the darkness and ran his paw down her cheek, tracing the claw mark scars that another red fox named Gideon Grey had left on her when they were much younger. "That one was a disappointment," the fox-like thing sadly sighed. "He should have given in to his anger and finished you off, but he didn't, I wonder why!"

She knew that it was only a rhetorical question and he didn't want an answer. She felt as his paw moved down her muzzle to her shoulder and realized she was powerless to stop him.

He cupped her cheeks again and she stared with fear into his blood-red eyes. "Just what is it about you two? No matter what I do, you two still get together in the end. I've tried to stop this so many times and in so many realities, but I have always failed. I hate failing, it's in my nature to win, and so this time I decided to directly intervene. He straightened up and as he walked away, he snapped the digits of his right paw and a flame seemed to dance within. "That raging inferno was of my doing, I've always been partial to a good fire."

"But all those innocents…" she began to protest in her horror.

"Nobody is innocent," he snarled as he turned back to face her. It seemed that his eyes blazed in anger, but he quickly calmed down and chuckled to himself. "Alas I told you wrong, there is one who is innocent but that is another matter for another time and place. But here in this time and in this place, I'm going to use you to finally break Nicholas Wilde once and for all."

"Why? Why do you hate Nick so much?" she wailed out in her despair. "What did he ever do to you?"

"Oh my dear bunny," the fox-like thing chuckled. "I don't hate Nick…I hate you!"

 **Thirty minutes ago…**

The ride had become awkward as both of them tried to engage each other in meaningless small talk and office gossip. "So really do think Benny's gay?" she scoffed at his remarks. "I just think he's shy around the ladies."

"Sweetheart he's as gay as they come," Nick laughed. "I saw him checking out Wolford's tail yesterday when you two were talking in the lobby and trust me your fluffy little tail is much sexier than that mangy wolf's."

She giggled as his ears flattened in embarrassment when he suddenly realized what he had said. "Do you think my tail is sexy?" she asked.

"I…ah…well…," he stuttered again. "I mean…pull over!"

"What's wrong?" she asked in concern as she pulled the cruiser into a parking lot. "Are you okay?"

"Oh I'm perfectly fine," he nervously answered as his paw rubbed the back of his head "It just…well, I …" He looked around everywhere, but not into her eyes. Then it was obvious that he had come up with something, then he gave her that infamous smirk as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the deck of cards that he had been using to amuse her with some simple magic tricks during dinner. "I just want to show you a new trick."

"Nick now is not the time or place for one of your cheap card games," she admonished him with a disappointed tone.

"Indulge me Carrots," he replied as he shuffled the deck of cards in his lap. "Now cut the cards." She reached over and split the deck in two. "Now I'll show you the most important card in the deck." He said as he closed his eyes and drew a card, holding it for her to see.

"Nick, the most important card in the deck is the Ace of Spades, that's only the Three of Diamonds!" she giggled.

"Is it, maybe not," he gave the card a flick and it became the Queen of Hearts.

"How did you do that?" she asked as her nose twitched in surprise.

"It's called magic Carrots, a good magician never gives up his tricks. But as I said Judy, this card, the Queen of Hearts, is the most important card because…" he never finished what he was saying when the radio blared out a call for them to respond to a massive fire.

 **Currently…**

The fire had already engulfed the now derelict, but formerly posh hotel by the time they arrived at the scene. She could hear the fire truck's sirens in the distance, but she also heard the cries for help from inside. "Judy, wait!" Nick cried out to her as she launched herself towards the open door. "The fire department is almost here!"

She scrambled into the burning building, weaving in and out to avoid the flames in her haste. "Police!" she yelled as she climbed the stairwell. There was a creaking sound behind her and one of the upper floors caved in, trapping her.

Behind her, she could hear Nick's desperate cries in the distance as the smoke billowed around her, along with the sound of water hitting the flames and the voices of the firemammals. Her ears shot up when she suddenly heard a child's fearful cry and she sprinted towards the sound and deeper into the burning building.

"Carrots no!" he frantically yelled as he ran into the building after her. He saw her running down the smoke-filled hallway and into a room. He coughed as he followed, only to stop and look around in surprise when he realized that he was inside a dark smokeless room and that they were not alone.

"You're not supposed to be here!" what appeared to be another red fox in the blue suit snapped at him. "How did you get here?"

He looked at that other fox and then at the frightened rabbit. "I followed Judy," he snarled. "To save her."

"Save her!" the fox-like thing scoffed. "You can't save her."

"Come on Judy, let's go!" Nick called out to her as he held his paw in her direction. She tried to move, but she couldn't! She struggled to even speak, but the words wouldn't form in her mouth.

"She can't go with you," her captor scoffed. "She gave herself to me."

Nick snarled as he faced the other fox, who just smirked as he picked at some imaginary lint on the arm of his suit jacket. "Look I don't know who you are or where we are, but I'm a cop and you will release Officer Hopps now!" he said as he drew his tranquilizer gun.

"Do you really think by flashing your badge around here that it makes you some kind of hero?" the foxlike creature laughed. "All this time you've been so proud of that uniform, the fox who went straight and became something more than just a sly, thieving hustler. That uniform hasn't changed you one bit and it's only made you into the fool. Don't you know that you are the butt of your coworker's jokes and hated by your own species? So it is past time for you to take it off Nicholas and embrace what you were made to be in life, to become the cunning predator as nature created you and not the sappy idiot that this rabbit has turned you into."

"I SAID LET HER GO!" Nick growled as he aimed his gun at the creature. "Do it now or I'll fire!"

"Fire away," her captor laughed. Nick frowned as he pulled the trigger and the dart flew true in its path towards its target, only to be plucked from the air. The fox-like creature held it close to his eyes as if trying to see what the fluid inside consisted of before he crushed it with his paw. The liquid tranquilizer sizzled as it dripped through the digits of his paw and unto the floor.

"Who are you?" the fox stuttered out.

"I'm the one who created you," the fox thing answered as he made flames that danced in his paw. Nick looked into the fire and saw the creature whispering into the ear of the bear who killed his father, he saw it smiling behind him in the shadows when as a teenager he stole an elderly elk's purse and watched as he wasted the stolen money while she was racked with diabetic pain for not having her insulin that was inside the now discarded purse. He frowned when he saw the hustle he pulled on a young raccoon father and how he enjoying the fruits of his dishonest labor as the poor family's kits went to bed hungry. The flames danced higher while he watched his mother's tears as she missed her son when he ran away from home. "See this is what you really are Nicholas."

Judy struggled at what she saw and she finally found her voice. "Don't listen to him Nick, you are more than that!" she desperately called out. The flames danced as they showed the same teenage fox taking his last dollar and giving it to a homeless kitten so she could eat, while he went hungry. They showed Nick purposely losing a shell game, so as not to fleece a disabled veteran of his cash. It revealed him as a uniformed cop talking a young despondent college student from committing suicide and then taking time to visit the same student at the hospital.

"ENOUGH!" the creature snarled as he smothered the flames in anger. "If you won't do what needs to be done, then I'll do it myself!"

"WAIT!" Nick desperately called out. "In fox lore, they call you the Trickster, right? They say you like to play games of chance too! I have a deck of cards, let's play a game and the winner takes all."

"What kind of game?" the creature asked in a curious voice.

"Simple, we both draw a card and the high card wins," the fox answered. "It's as easy as that."

"If I win, you will kill Judy!" the fox thing laughed.

"But if I win, you will free us both," Nick quickly added as he shuffled the deck.

He offered the deck to the creature who drew a card. "The Jack of Spades" the creature called out in triumph as he showed the card to the fox. "Show me your card!"

Nick sighed as he drew his card and then held it up, it was the Three of Diamonds.

"I win!" the creature screamed in joy.

"Ah, but did you?" Nick chuckled as he held his card in one paw, gave it a flick and somehow it suddenly became the Queen of Hearts. He gave a small smirk of victory as he said, "There's an old saying that in the end, somehow love always conquers all and Judy is the queen of my heart."

The creature who calls himself Old Nick and the Trickster, among other names, stared at the card and realized that the rabbit on it looked exactly like Judy. With a snarl, he turned towards his captive, who was no longer there! "You tricked me!" he yowled in anger, his voice echoing in the now empty room.

 **Thirty minutes ago…**

"Nick now is not the time or place for one of your cheap card games," she admonished him with a disappointed tone as they sat in the police cruiser.

"Indulge me Carrots," he replied as he shuffled the deck of cards in his lap. "Now cut the cards." She reached over and split the deck in two. "Now I'll show you the most important card in the deck." He said as he closed his eyes and drew a card, holding it for her to see.

"Nick, the most important card in the deck is the Ace of Spades, that's only the Three of Diamonds!" she giggled.

"Is it, maybe not," he gave the card a flick and it became the Queen of Hearts.

"How did you do that?" she asked as her nose twitched in surprise.

"It's called magic Fluff, a good magician never gives up his tricks. But as I said Judy, this card, the Queen of Hearts, is the most important card because…" the radio blared, but the call was canceled because the fire department was already at the scene of the fire along with another police unit.

"As I was saying Judy, this is the most important card because it reminds me of you…you are the queen of my heart!" Nick continued. "I love you, Judy…"

"Oh, Nick!" the rabbit exclaimed as she launched herself into his arms and they kissed.

 **Epilogue**

The fire department's arson investigator knelt in the rubble, as of yet the large moose was unable to determine what caused the blaze that consumed most of the old hotel. He sighed because the one saving grace was that the old building had been empty and no one was injured or worse. His eyes saw something amongst the ash and he picked it up, holding the slightly charred playing card to the light and saw it was the Jack of Spades.

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 **It's called the Snap Change Card Trick sweethearts…**


End file.
